It’s difficult keeping track of everything O’Rourke has a hand in, and Simple Songs works as an antidote for clutching at straws by adding a layer of depth to an otherwise indiscernible character; it offers insight into the workings of a prodigious mind, and it comes off sounding triumphant.
Simple Songs as a title is a classic O’Rourke curveball – the album’s eight tracks are as complex and intricate as anything he’s has released, with or without vocals.
O’Rourke is always clever and funny, but the driving force in his music is the art of the arrangement. Many of the greatest pleasures on Simple Songs come from how certain instruments are layered together, how the chords are voiced and the harmonic progressions unfold.
The songs are lushly dense and about as challenging and exhilarating as pop can be.
The songs are mysteriously open, closed off in their approachability, layered in beauty and pain, and collectively serving as a reminder of Jim O’Rourke’s polymath multitudes.
Neither easy listening or abrasive, Simple Songs is the sound of O’Rourke spraying his idiosyncratic fairy dust over a genre he clearly appreciates, albeit through the lenses of his own somewhat eccentric vision.
What this album does for Jim O'Rourke's dizzyingly eclectic and varied discography is prove a point.
Jim is most known for his late 90's-early 2000's input which is also his most digestible. Take Bad Timing, his beautiful exploration into American Primitivism (he is friends with John Fahey, so it checks out.) Take Insignificance, his indie rock detour, and Eureka, his artsy chamber pop magnum opus. These albums only scrape the surface of what Jim was artistically capable of. We would see him ... read more
What we're dealing with here is typical O'Rourke - deadpan vocals and layered but always obsessively neat highly varied instrumentation.
Arguably his most consistent set of simple songs yet.
What this album does for Jim O'Rourke's dizzyingly eclectic and varied discography is prove a point.
Jim is most known for his late 90's-early 2000's input which is also his most digestible. Take Bad Timing, his beautiful exploration into American Primitivism (he is friends with John Fahey, so it checks out.) Take Insignificance, his indie rock detour, and Eureka, his artsy chamber pop magnum opus. These albums only scrape the surface of what Jim was artistically capable of. We would see him ... read more
What we're dealing with here is typical O'Rourke - deadpan vocals and layered but always obsessively neat highly varied instrumentation.
Arguably his most consistent set of simple songs yet.
1 | Friends With Benefits 5:25 | 89 |
2 | That Weekend 3:15 | 79 |
3 | Half Life Crisis 4:42 | 86 |
4 | Hotel Blue 3:21 | 86 |
5 | These Hands 3:13 | 77 |
6 | Last Year 5:47 | 91 |
7 | End of the Road 5:33 | 84 |
8 | All Your Love 6:22 | 90 |
#5 | / | MOJO |
#7 | / | The Wire |
#9 | / | Stereogum |
#13 | / | Uncut |
#14 | / | Magnet |
#42 | / | Rough Trade |
#45 | / | Pitchfork |
#81 | / | Under the Radar |